Lost and Found
by toran-kun
Summary: T&P already! Set in Mirai's AU, more or less. Trunks makes a travel to the past to change a world of nightmares. When he comes back, there's something he will find that he hadn't before. Status: incomplete. *Chapter 4 up with T&P hints* Thanks to PCTG for
1. Chapter 1

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Lost and found 

Chapter 1

The boy woke up slowly. He didn't feel like getting up at all. He made a sigh, followed by a yawn, and not opening his eyes, he rolled aside. Stretching out his arms over his head, he got still. His breath became calm again, as it was minutes ago. He didn't want to get up. No, he didn't. He was so comfortable in his bed...!

He yawned and started to take conscience of what was around him. He felt his feet, icy frozen and his body pained. Both feelings were usual in his every morning - frozen feet, because he used to turn a lot in bed, when he was sleeping, making all the sheets to fall to the floor. Hurt body because of the hard training with Son Gohan every afternoon, for about six hours.

He groaned lazily and hid his face on the pillow. He heard some noises coming from outside the bedroom, someone was stirring something with a little spoon and a radio was playing music. The boy frowned, making a face without noticing he was. He didn't like radio, they were playing old songs - hardly anyone felt like composing new ones - most of the time. They were old songs that were cyclically repeated. When they stopped the music, it was only because they had to read press releases, always announcing dreadful news. However, Gohan and mum had the radio switched on the whole day. Moreover, concerning the energy in the kitchen, Trunks knew that the person who was having breakfast was his master. He searched for his mother's, trying to find her, but he couldn't feel her ki. So, he thought, she should be up there, at Cc, with her mysterious machine. Apart from being his teacher during the morning, every single day, she used to spend practically all her time working in that big machine.

Almost unconsciously he half opened his eyes and rubbed them with both his hands. His bedroom door, adjusted, let enter a tiny line of light, that slipping on the floor, arrived to the bed, getting to his eyes before going up the wall. His mother, he thought, had opened and let the door like that so he would awake slowly, because of the light and the soft noises, for she was sorry to have to wake him up all of a sudden.

He stayed still for a while, just listening. A chill ran along his body and he hugged himself, holding his feet to warm them. He let another yawn out. He was lazy, very lazy... But he knew he had to get up, classes would start at ten o'clock and mum had never allowed him to be late. He found it rather stupid, it should be all the same if some day they were to start a bit later being him the only pupil in the class and his mother the teacher. 

But mum was always saying that he had to learn to be punctual and to have rites. And no one could argue with mum. So he would better get up at once.

He stretched out lazily and groaned, sitting on the bed. He saw his sheets cruised, like a ball, laying on the floor near the bed. It was incredible that they were the same every morning. Mumbling - afterwards it would always take the double of time to make it again - he stepped on the floor, trembling because of the contact with the floorboards. He grabbed the sheets and put them again on the bed.

Walking a bit dizzy, he got to the door and full opened it. The light got into his eyes, hurting, and the radio volume grew.

He walked barefoot to the kitchen - he had not to walk a long path, for the bunker was rather small - and he got in.

Gohan, already dressed in his training gi, looked up, instead of looking at the mug he was holding in his hands and smiled a bit when seeing him. He walked towards the table, making pain faces because of the fluorescent light, and sat down on the chair opposite him. Too lazy to keep awake, he folded his arms on the table and he put down his head, closing his eyes again.

-Good morning, sleepy head! – he heard Gohan saying to him, before he felt his hand on his head, tangling his hair up even more. His only answer was a not very enthusiastic "hmm!". – You slept over today! I was wondering if you would ever get up!

Over? He raised up his head and questioningly looked at him.

-What's the time?

-Almost half past ten. I think we trained too hard yesterday. 

-Half past...?! – he jumped down the chair and went out of the kitchen. – Mum's gonna kill me!!! – he shouted, entering in his bedroom again, switching on the light and trying to find some clothes to wear. 

He heard Gohan, calling him from the kitchen. He was telling him to go back and not to be worried about his mother. The boy walked to the kitchen again, taking off the huge T-shirt belonging to Gohan that he wore as a pyjama, and carrying a clean one on the other hand.

Gohan was waiting for him, not sitting down properly, as if he had been on the point of going out of the kitchen to talk to him. When he saw the boy coming in, he smiled and beckoned him over. 

-But y'know she always tells me off if I'm late...! – he mumbled, throwing the pyjama to the floor and putting on the other T-shirt.

-She's not scolding you today – Gohan answered and, while Trunks was passing his arms by the sleeves, he made a resigned face to him. – She's missing again. 

The noise and the shaking became lighter, little by little. The guy, with his eyes closed, bent his head until his chin touched his chest, and biting his lower lip, he tried to get ready for the worst. Without noticing it, he had stopped breathing, and his brain was only repeating, rhythmically, the same word, again and again. _Please. Please. Please. _

Minutes after, he felt brave enough to open his eyes. The machine seemed stable to him, all was in silence, the shaking that had gone with him during all the journey had disappeared, and he couldn't read any emergency sign on the screens. Feeling that relief was taking control of his body, he stopped holding his breath and relaxed his hands, that were firmly closed at the sides of the seat. Although it was the second time that he had travelled in that big machine, he had felt not even a little better or less scared and insecure; mainly because of the bad memories he had from his first landing. He had forced himself, he had tried harder not to think about that landing during all the journey, but, in fact, he hadn't had anything more in his brain, specially when the journey was finishing. Yes, he had written the same co-ordinates that he had set off from, that was to say, fromone of the Cc's laboratories. But how could he be sure that everything would work properly? And how could he certainly know that nothing had changed and that the co-ordinates, instead of belonging to Cc, coincide exactly with, say, a volcano crater that was beginning to erupt? Actually, he didn't know anything about the place where he had landed. A plane had advantages, the pilot could see the runway from the sky. But he only appeared wherever. His first landing showed that to him, frighteningly and painfully. And, certainly, he didn't feel like repeating it at all. 

He closed his eyes firmly for a while, shook his head and looked at the screen again, only to be completely sure that everything had worked properly. His mother, in her CD, had explained to him how to operate the spaceship in detail, which were the most frequent problems and how to solve them, but still he didn't feel very secure. He had never been used to work with computers, for, although she had started to teach him when he was a child, she died when they were only focused on the simply word processor, the CD and a few more easy things. Despite of that, heliked video-games, but being an expert on that topic didn't help much when he was to drive a time-machine. 

The screen would show him the co-ordinates of the place where he had landed (or maybe he should say had appeared) and the date. Both of them should coincide exactly with the place and time he had set off from; for him, it was a few months before. For his time, nothing, a few thousandths of a second, as if he had not even disappeared at all. 

He checked out the co-ordinates and smiled proudly. They coincided to perfection. Then he looked out the date.

It was two weeks after he had gone, but his mother had already warned him. That was one of the machine's imperfections she hadn't been able to polish up, and that she would never repair it. Automatically, when the machine was coming back, it was placed some days, weeks or even a month later. That was the reason because Gohan and him could notice that his mother was missing, although it shouldn't have been like that. 

He rubbed his eyes, feeling an incredible relief. He had landed without any trouble. The spaceship kept stable and the screen showed to him that everything was alright. 

He sighed and rested his head on the seat, closing his eyes. Although everything had already finished, his first landing back to the past's memories were still too much bright inside his brain. He didn't want to think any more about it, but they were so bright! He would probably have it stuck in his mind forever!! 

He remembered how scared he had been, so much that he had thought that his death was very, very near... and the worst of it all had been that uncertainty, the total ignorance of where he would appear. 

His mother hadn't told him about that. He thought she had not done so because she didn't want to scare him even more. She had only told him that, before travelling to the past, he should move co-ordinates a bit, in order to not appear among all of them, in the middle of Cc; so that he would cause only indispensable disturbances. But she had never told him that the runway could not be sure, and he had had too many things inhis mind to think about it too. He had simply imagined that the spaceship would lay down on some flat surface, at a little distance away from Cc. Landing hadn't seemed to him one of the biggest troubles he had, in that moment, so he had never imagined that something could not work as he thought and he had focused on othermatters. 

He kept on remembering his first landing, still with his head resting on the seta, his eyes closed. He felt that everything had been like in a nightmare.

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Flashback

When the computer screen had shown to him that he had been on the point of arriving and that the journey to the past had successfully finished, he had allowed himself to smile, satisfied. Obviously, he had been frightened. His mother had told him about the spaceship shaking when it moves along the time, but it didn't mean that he felt less impressed. Moreover, there was that horrible thought, as horribleas credible, in that situation: maybe he would not be able to go out of that no-reality, the machine would not find the new world entrance, he would be captured there, going upwards and downwards, forever and ever... For that reason, when he knew he was arriving, he believed all had gone to perfection. He even felt relieved. Yes, relieved. He had managed to travel to the past. 

There was shaking, a lot of shaking. And, suddenly, he was able to sense everyone's ki. That amazed him during a few minutes; partly because it had been two days without perceiving any of them (if it is correct to talk about days when travelling by time-machine), but mainly because he felt, brightly, Gohan and mother's ki. 

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Nearly twenty years later, twenty years without sensing them.

But he hadn't plenty of time to spend sensing the energies of those who had been his family when he was a child. Soon he realised that something was beginning to go wrong. According to his mother's explanations, when the machine arrived at a new world, some mechanism would activate a kind of jointed legs, which would support it. Instead of this, the guy noticed, little by little but with growing certainty, that the machine was beginningto slope. He heard some noises, which later, a lot of time later, he identified as trees and branches breaking down. Faster and faster, all began to go round. He only was hearing the emergency alarm from the computer, where a red light was shining. He knew he had to do something, whatever, but what?! He did not even know what was happening! With his heart in his mouth and on the temples, scared as he had never been, he knew without any doubt that he was living the last minutes of his life. _Cabin free objects were flying uncontrolled, following the shaking, and he was still sitting down on his seat only because he hadn't thought of removing the safety belt. He rose his hands instinctively, bending his head down in order to protect himself with his arms, but he acted too slowly and he wasn't in time to keep a metal box, containing CDs, from hitting his forehead between the eyes, putting him to unconsciousness just in a few seconds._

Trunks frown, suddenly feeling quite stupid. He had realised that worrying that like had been a nonsense. Pursing his lips, he kicked the T-shirt he had thrown before to the floor. Although he should be used to it, since she had been doing so far as long as he could remember, he hated mum's disappearances. He was worried. As she never told them either where she was going or when she would return, they were never sure that they would see her again, and not even Gohan knew what she was doing, wherever she went. Gohan and Trunks had talked about it. They had assumed that all was related to that big machine on which she put all her attention, but they could not be sure in all. Actually, they hardly know anything, only what she had decided to explain to them, and it was not much. She had started building it after Trunks's father's death. Then he was too young to remember it, but Gohan had told him that his mother had had a rough time out of it, she had been a nervous wreck, making calculus day and night and changing her mood constantly. Only one thing had kept her apart from Cc's library and the computer, at least for some time; it was himself, her little son, who was just starting to walk. Since then, she hadn't stopped working on and reforming the machine. One day she commented to Gohan that that machine was her way to fight against the Monster, but that information, hardly anything, was the only thing they knew.

Trunks sighed, annoyed. So he didn't sense mum's ki because she was not there. She had gone again, so she wasn't upstairs, as he had thought, working at Cc. He sat down reluctantly. Gohan got up and prepared him a glass of milk.

-Don't be upset – he said to him, putting the glass in front of the boy and trying to cheer him up. – You know she'll come back soon. Before you notice it, she'll be here again. 

-But she never says goodbye when she goes away – the boy grumbled, after he had made a drink, with a white moustache above his upper lip.

-This is because saying goodbye makes people sad. Don't you think it's better this way?

Staring at him, the boy didn't know what to answer, so he finished the milk in silence. When Gohan was putting a plate full of croissants in front of him, music was interrupted on the radio, and they began the news bulletin. Gohan paralysed himself while Trunks, half-hearted, closed his eyes. He wished he didn't have to listen whatever they were going to say.

Anything new, and, however, news that made hair stood on end. The Monster had appeared again after two months of calmness. He was having fun at a new city. How many time would this city last to Him? A month, in which He would torture every inhabitant? Or maybe only a few hours, only until He got tired and decided to blow the city up with an energy ball? 

The only wish that the doomed inhabitants could have was that the Monster would choose the second option. 

Gohan switched the radio off when music was put again, and, suddenly, silence suffocated the boy. He stared at his master, holding a croissant in his hand, while he was sitting down again and hid his face in his hands. 

-Gohan...? – the boy asked, shyly.

-Yes?

-Are you alright...?

The guy forced himself to smile.

-Don't worry. Yes, I'm alright. It's only that... – he sighed deeply – ... I feel impotent.

Trunks put the croissant in his mouth and chewed reluctantly. 

-Why does He do that? – he asked, with his mouth filled. 

It was neither an original question nor a new one. It was exactly the same question that all the humankind (or at least the few people that were still alive) had been wondering every moment of their lives, since He appeared.

And it was a question that had no an answer.

For that reason, the gut only shrugged his shoulders. 

-I'm tired – he whispered.

-Maybe you're training too hard – Trunks answered. Sometimes, when he was already in bed, he had heard mum telling that to Gohan, with a worried tone. He trained constantly, since he wake up until he went to bed, day after day, without relaxing himself not even at the weekend; without changing his planning not even one day of the year. That made mum worried. 

His master shook his head, smiling a bit.

-I'm not tired in this way, Trunks. I'm tired of Him. I'm tired of not being able to win Him. Of my life. Of impotence. Of all.

-Are you tired of me too?

The guy looked at the boy. He had a white moustache and crumbs on his lips, and he was staring at him with sadness. When he looked at his pupil's blue eyes, his old wound was reopened, as many times of the day.

-No, I'm not tired of you... – he stretched his hand out in order to clean his face, and, suddenly, he felt as he could not control his words. He had hid it for too long. Too much time with that sadness that had been torturing him. Too much sense of loss for the happiness he had hold in his arms and that had gone hardly without he noticing it, like in a sigh. – Y'know, my child would be three years old by now...

Trunks opened his eyes wide, knitting his brows with misunderstanding. 

-Your child? Which child?

He felt puzzled. Gohan had had a child? Mum had never told him that. Moreover, if that child would be three years old, he would remember it, wouldn't he? Three years were not such a long time! But Gohan had lived with mum and him as long as he could remember, and he had never seen him with a girl. Which child was he talking about? Maybe was he getting crazy? Frightened, he waited anxiously for the reply, which arrived to him a bit muffled because Gohan had hidden his face in his hands again. 

-I was on the point of having a baby...

Since he stopped, Trunks encouraged him to go on. 

-What happened?

-The Monster killed the mother. 


	2. Chapter 2

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Lost and found

Chapter 2 

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When he woke up, quietness was all around. Actually, everything was so calm that, at first, he didn't know where he was. But suddenly he remembered it brightly. He had travelled back to the past... he was in another world... landing hadn't been as he had imagined, but, despite of all, he felt relieved. He was alive. That thought hit him, making him shiver. He was alive! He was alive!!

He moved his head a bit, in order to get an idea of his situation, and he felt sick. The spaceship had remained on a strange position, laying on its side, and if he had removed before the safety belt, he wouldn't be still sitting down on his seat and he would have gone down with the cabin free objects, which had pounced down the back wall. He sighed, closing his eyes. He had a headache and all was turning round him. He remembered, confused, hitting with the box and he rose his hand to his face. The contact with his forehead made him open his eyes suddenly. He had a wound, between his eyes, just above his nose. By the touch, it seemed more or less healed, but the skin around it was sticky, and only grazing it with his fingers made him shiver with pain. He closed his eyes again and rubbed them. He felt his head heavy and he felt like vomiting. But he had to do something... something with the spaceship... at least, to guess where he had landed! He sighed deeply, bent in his seat being careful because _he certainly didn't want to fall on his side, and looked at the computer's screen. Before being able to see anything on it, he had to bright his sight twice. His heart was beating bravely again, but the message he received from the computer made him smile with huge relief that even made him forget his headache for a bit. Yes, there were problems with some of the spaceship's mechanisms, and he would have to spend a lot of time repairing it, and maybe he would have to buy some new spare parts. But both of the co-ordinates and the date were extremely reassuring; the date still was the same that the one he had introduced there, in his world, when he had entered in the machine, and the co-ordinates only were moved a little, nothing important. So that, instead of all, the essential had worked properly. He had travelled to the past_and he had landed. He had done that! He was in the past, and alive!! He allowed himself a little feeling of satisfaction. He hadn't been kept as a time prisoner... he could get out of the spaceship... he remembered the strange ideas which had crossed his head _the last moments and he shivered, although he was already save. Black holes... energy jails... all the rest of his life captured in that totally unknown uncertainty! He shook his head, trying not to think that he would have to repeat that journey, as a minimum, if everything worked properly, once more. Sometimes he hated having that imagination. _

He thought about what he had to do next. First of all he had to get out of the time-machine, and get and idea of the place where he had arrived. A past world... he had thought about it during all the journey, trying to imagine how that world would be. Gohan and mother, again. Did he notice it? There they would be still alive. And himself? He would be seven years old. Seven years old, did he notice it? It was too much time... a whole life had gone after that. Being a seven years old child, he still believed that the world was quite nice, despite of the Monster. He still saw Gohan and mum as a kind of gods, and he adored them. He still retained the child's innocence, he still hadn't had to face up, completely alone, the life. 

He shook his head, annoyed, scolding himself. That moment wasn't the best to be sorry for himself, and as he had learnt many years ago, doingso didn't solve anything at all. 

Who else would be alive? Obviously, his objective. Gohan's girl.

In that point, he had more advantages than his mother had _had. She only had wanted that the guy had a baby with someone, that is because her plan didn't work. But he knew more._

He knew with whom Gohan wanted it.

And he also knew, if he hadn't had a mistake with his calculus, that in that world, there was already a girl with the humankind's rescuer growing in her womb. 

Trunks didn't understand it. What did Gohan mean by the Monster killed the mother? His master had never had a girlfriend. What the heck was he talking about?

-But, Gohan... – he started to ask, but the guy interrupt him.

-Have you finished your breakfast? – he asked, sharply.

The boy, surprised, nodded without a word, and Gohan got up, starting to clear away the table. He put the plates in the sink, filled the mugs with water and gave the table a wipe over. When he finished, he stared at the boy. 

-Don't you think you should finish dressing up? 

Trunks had followed him with the eyes during all the time he had been cleaning the kitchen, still. 

-What are we going to do, Gohan...? – he asked finally, feeling shyness. 

-What are we going to do?! We're going to train, that's evident! Or what did you think?

-But...

-You'll study when your mother come back – since the boy kept still, he made an impatient sign with his arms. – Come on! What are you waiting for to dress up?

Trunks jumped down the chair and ran to his room, with Gohan's words and his strange behaviour stuck in his mind. Dressing up himself with his training gi, he decided that, afterwards, later, if his master recovered his good mood, he would talk again about that topic. 

They trained on a mountain field, far away from Cc, for a lot of time, until Trunks, exhausted and hurt, let himself fall on the grass, with arms crossed and breathing heavily. Gohan flied down, floating slowly, until he remained standing up at his side. Then he sat down and looked at him while the boy was restoring. 

-I-I-I... will n-n-never... turn into it...G-gohan... – he stuttered, puffing. 

-You will certainly do it. When you liberate all your fury, you'll do it. 

-And w-w-when will be that? I-I'm...tired of you al-always telling me the same again... and a-again...! I-I-I wanna b-bump Him off _right now_!!!!! 

-You know you can't. I can turn into it and I can't either. And don't make me tell you the same thousands of times, Trunks. I think you're old enough to understand the situation. 

-But i-i-it's... in-infuriating, Gohan!!!!! 

-Then concentrate that fury in freeing the energy and don't waste it chatting!

The boy kept in silence, and watching the sky, he recovered his breath little by little. When he was a bit calmer, he sat down and looked at his master with shyness, rubbing his jaw, hurt because of a punch he hadn't known how to dodge.

-Anyway, am I improving...?

Gohan smiled, but just a bit.

-You could always improve.

-Yes, I know, but have I improved since the last time you told me that I could always improve? 

Gohan smiled widely, wrapping an arm around Trunks's shoulders and hugging him. 

-Yes, you're doing much better.

Trunks felt satisfaction, despite of his hurt body. His master's congratulations were not very usual.

There was a nice smell, of wet grass, and a fresh draft was blowing, moving their hair. There was still snow on the mountains, although spring was already finishing. It was so tempting to believe that nothing was happening, that all was in peace. But both of them knew that the threat did exist and that the region that the Monster would chose was a lottery. He could appear there, at any moment, and blow everything up before they had time to get up. He was always there..., a danger waiting wherever. Trunks could not imagine another reality, as he had always lived with that fright, with that nearly destruction, and Gohan, who was twelve years old when everything started, could hardly remember what his life had been like in peace. It was a long time ago. Too many things had happened since then. 

Trunks rose his sight for a moment, just to look at his master. He looked down again, staring at a white flower, and decided that the guy had recovered, at least a bit, his good mood, since he had even smiled to him. During all the training Trunks hadn't been able to move his thoughts away on what he had told him while he was having breakfast. Gohan had had a child!!!! He had to know how it had happened, if mum knew that, why hadn't they told anything to him. Everything was too strange. And Gohan's behaviour just after he had told him, angry, brusque, had upset him even more. 

-Are you not angry with me any more? – he almost whispered.

He felt Gohan's eyes on him, but he didn't look at him.

-I wasn't angry with you. Why do you say so?

-You looked as if you were. 

-Well, I'm not.

Trunks rose his head and stared at him.

-You looked as if you were... after you told me about your child.

That words made Gohan changing his face. His eyes got dark and he turned away. He removed his arm of Trunks's shoulders, bent his legs against his chest, and with his chin on his folded arms, put on his knees, he made his look distant.

Trunks felt insecure. He didn't know what to do at all.

-I didn't want... – he started, but he stopped himself. What did he not want ? – Gohan...?

-Do you want to know everything? - the guy asked, with a voice that didn't seem his own.

The boy had wanted to tell him that only if he wanted to told it to him, but finally he only nodded.

-Swear you will never tell anything to anybody.

-I swear it.

It wouldn't be so difficult. After all, he only spoke to Gohan and mum. 

-Of course, neither to your mother. – Gohan added. 

The boy shook his head, serious.

-Neither to mum.

Then, Gohan started to talk, without looking at him, always in a whisper.

He opened his eyes slowly, while he was rising a hand and caressing the wound between the eye, or at least what was lasting of it, because the scab was beginning to loosen, and a white mark was taking the place of it. 

That was enough.

He knew himself. He was slowing down the moment of getting out of the spaceship. He was running away.

He had to stop thinking about his travel. Of course it was so much easier just to enjoy himself feeling relief because the journey had finished...! But that already belonged to the past. 

He shook his head, trying to erase his travel's memories; Gohan, mother, Videl, all of them..., and his hair, too long, waved in front of his face. He remembered what Gohan had told to him. "When you go home", he had recommended to him, "make an effort to think about it like a dream...". He had told him that, if he didn't do that, all that memories could mean to him an important psychological confusion. 

Trunks smiled a bit. "A psychological confusion", Gohan had told him, with a serious face, worried, embracing Videl with an arm around her shoulders. 

The guy remembered his childhood's years, when Gohan, his master, used to told him, in his good mood moments, that if there wasn't the Monster, he would have studied Medicine, and he would have become a great doctor. 

Maybe in that world he would have managed to do that. If everything had worked properly, of course.

He bit his lower lip lightly. His ex – master was right, he knew it. He had to stop thinking about that past world or he would get crazy – what Gohan named euphemistically an "psychological confusion". But seeing it as a dream was not so easy. Everything was too recent yet. He needed time. Time to forget that he had slip himself through the time grids and that he had seen things he was not supposed to see. And also done things he was not supposed to do, although that didn't belong to his time-line, to his fate, to say it in some way. But he didn't believe in fate... or maybe he did? 

He realised, surprised, that in a few minutes, when he decided to go out of the machine, which for the moment he saw like a protecting capsule, he would be the first person who would know if destiny is certainly a real item and if it could be changed. The first person...!!!

If he opened the door and found a half-ruined laboratory, if he went out of the laboratory and didn't see anybody, if his mind was flooded out by that dreadful ki which had went with him as long he could remember...

Then, he would know that fate is something fixed, immovable, and that everything mother and him had done wouldn't mean anything at all. He would return to his house, to the bunker, and his empty and hated life would be waiting for him, ready to renew, after weeks of abstinence, that never-end nights, lying down on the old bunker bed, with his eyes widely open fixed in the ceiling and remembering the good old days, when he woke up and heard the radio; remembering when it was still broadcasting something, news bulletins, regularly, and music... instead of that static sound which took the broadcasting's place a long time ago...

And searching, almost indifferently, some reason for not letting himself die, simply. 

On the other hand, if he opened the door and the laboratory was not ruined...

If there was people working...

If he felt Gohan and mother's ki again...

If he felt, that time much more intense, liberated of its mother's womb, Gohan and Videl's ki mixed in a new person... 

And, of course, if he didn't feel Him...

Then he would know he would had changed fate. 

It was not necessary that all that things happened. Only that everything was different. Maybe not _everything_, just one part. Whatever.

Was he playing God? Wasn't that so?

Mother had already thought about that. She told him that in the CD. She wondered, when she was building the time-machine, if she really had any right to do what she had planned to. And finally she came to the conclusion that she did not aim so high, that she was not playing God. She only was "playing" to obtain a better future for the person who she loved the most in the world. That was to say, him. 

But, and him? Was he playing God? 

Actually, he didn't know exactly why he had continued his mother's work. Only that, one day, after thinking about it without any relax, he _knew, _he _felt _he had to do that. A bit because he had a debt with his mother. She had sacrificed herself to save his life, although, in that moment, he hadn't understood it. 

Another bit for Gohan. He had to take revenge on him. Gohan had been his master and who most similar to a father had been. During his childhood, he would have killed for Gohan. But the Monster was who killed him finally. He would get the Monster for killing Gohan and not allowing him to take revenge on the girl who he loved and on the baby who was growing inside her. 

Another bit for those who he didn't ever meet. His father. Gohan's parents. His grandparents. And for all the people, all the inhabitants of the world, for those who had lost relatives, friends. For everybody who had lost their lives. And for those who had killed themselves, trying to fight against Him or, simply, giving in.

And also for himself. It was true that he hadn't known another life. But Gohan and mother had told him how life was before the Monster. And he had also imagined. His imagination had been his floating table, what had kept him sane through so many years of loneliness. Those worlds he had imagined were terribly better than that, where he was living. And He had stolen them to him. 

But mainly because a deep and strange feeling that he didn't know how to explain but that controlled him... A feeling that was repeating, tirelessly, "do it, do it. You _must_ do it."

Simply.

He had done what he had done because he _had _to do so. Something inside him was telling him to, with a confident voice, a voice which didn't want any buts.

He shook his head again. Sometimes he exasperated himself. He was running away again. And he didn't have all the time in the world, despite of being in a time-machine. He had to centre on what he was doing, because he had another unknown world in front of him again. He bent his head a bit and looked at the exit door. He wondered what would be behind it. He didn't know anything. He couldn't know anything. And he had no option, he had to open the door. Open the door and see.

Slowly, almost like a zombie, he removed the safety belt and got up. He looked at the computer for a while, checking the co-ordinates and the date one last time. "Another way to put off the moment, um, Trunks?", he asked himself. Rolling his eyes, he switched the computer off definitively. Then he turned round and started to get his things together, with movements suddenly growing faster and faster. He wanted to stop once and for all with that distressing. He had to get out of the machine, hadn't he? So, it would be better to do it at once and stop as fast as possible with that distress that was eating him away...!!!

He put all his personal objects in one bag, the one that had gone with him during all this trip, and he hung it on his shoulder. The other things, at the moment, would stay in the machine. If... if everything went properly, he would return and he would clear them up. And then he would do what mother told him in the CD.

He stopped himself in front of the door, and his fast movements frozen. He just had to drive a mechanism placed near the door and then it would open. 

As simply as that.

When he finally do so, the door started to open, making a sound of compressed air. 


	3. Chapter 3

I ella, a poc a poc, es deixà convèncer **Lost and Found - 3**

**By Tóran**

He told him that, about four years ago, he had met a girl, one day, while training. Firstly he didn't notice her presence and, when he finally discovered her, observing him astonished from below, half hidden, he knew that she had watched the whole thing: that he was able to fly, that he could become a supersayjin, throw energy balls, everything. He flied down beside her and, in the beginning, she tried to escape out of panic but he got to stop her and told her not to be scared. That he didn't mean any harm. 

With someone else he would have gone on training, he made Trunks notice, but not with her; he had noticed with only one glance that she was different. He felt odd. 

Forgetting all about training, his only wish was to talk to her. 

So he had calmed her down (after all, nobody was surprised because of something a bit out of normality those days), and they sat down, just like the boy and he was sitting then, to talk. 

Son Gohan told Trunks that he had never seen a more beautiful girl. 

"You couldn't even imagine her", he murmured, hardly sketching a smile, and Trunks shrugged in response. 

He simply couldn't take his eyes off of her. She had short, black hair, and blue eyes, huge and gorgeous according to Son Gohan. In the beginning of their conversation her eyes had been dubious, fearful; little by little, while talking, their expression progressively became relaxed, until she showed Son Gohan what he, from then on, considered the most beautiful thing in Creation: her smile. He said to Trunks that there was no point in trying to describe it, because he would not be able to. He had tried it before and he had never been able to. It was, simply.... 

He remained silent for some instants, looking for the exact word, and shook his head. 

"Perfect", he concluded. 

Trunks bit his lips, with a shy expression. He was amazed because of his master; he had never seen such a visage. It was like a mixture between an unending sorrow and something else, something else that he did not know to identify until much, much later, one day, looking at his reflection on a mirror: love for a girl. 

Nevertheless, he did not know anything about his master's look, so he kept on staring at him, though he still had his gaze lost on the horizon, and mindfully listening to him, though only half-understanding, astounded. 

After that first time, they started meeting regularly. It was a gradual, slow, with little sudden changes. They ended meeting every day, nearly without realising how they had got to that point. 

Trunks showed his surprise. He had never seen his master with any girl, and mother had said nothing about it either, he made him note. 

His master sadly smiled and explained that that was because he hadn't wanted anyone to know. He could not tell very well why. Probably because he had been afraid, it was some kind of irrational fear. As if, only by speaking with someone about it, she would disappear or their relationship would end abruptly. But also for it had been his secret so far. His and hers, no one else's. Something special that the girl shared with him only. 

They met when his mother and he thought that he was training. 

"You didn't tell because, when you were younger, your mother hardly ever let you get out of the bunker, do you remember?", Gohan explained, looking at him for the first time since he had started speaking. 

He nodded. Now it was a bit more relaxed (though not too much yet!), but Trunks could recall when, only a bit ago, mother would go literally hysterical if he went out of the bunker on his own. There was no use in making her remember that she spent the day out, herself, in Cc, working on the machine or whatever, and that, in the end, she was much weaker than Trunks. No, she didn't even want to hear a word about it, if he was not with Son Gohan, he was not going out. So, despite the child's protests, she had him almost the whole day hidden inside the bunker, which walls were designed by Bulma's father, made the energies from inside very faint and unnoticeable, so that they could not be noticed by someone from the exterior, as vice versa. 

That was the reason because Trunks, doing his homework, drawing, reading or playing any video game, did not notice that there was a girl with his master, a girl that was spending more and more time with him everyday. 

They became closer friends each time. Gohan could think of nothing else, he needed her, he needed to see her, to talk to her, to see her smile. One single day without meeting, because of any reason, whatever, became torture. 

And, finally, the next step happened. As the rest of their relationship, it was calmed, spontaneous and not forced at all; one day, one random day, they kissed each other. 

Trunks moved a bit, feeling a bit ashamed, but weird above all. His master had never told him about that, never with that voice. And now he felt as if he shouldn't listen, to all he was telling him. As... as if he was an intruder. 

But Gohan didn't seem to notice and he kept on speaking, always in a whisper, with tearful shining eyes and with his look locked straight forward. He did not look like he was talking to him. It was more as if he was thinking aloud, meditating for himself. 

The need of one another started growing, progressively, till the point that the minutes he did not spend with her were unbearable. When they met, they held each other sharply, stating that need, and they kissed long and passionately, as if wanting to make that moment everlasting, as if wanting to have the other completely inside, inside in all, inebriated with that contact. Gohan loved her with delirium, totally, he was completely crazy about her. He had never felt something of the sort for anyone. 

Trunks had lowered his gaze and was playing, almost unnoticeable, with a little yellow flower, but, since his master stopped, all of a sudden, he looked at him again. 

His gesture frightened him. He looked sick, nearly fainting. 

"Gohan...", he whispered. He didn't know why, but he wouldn't have felt right if he had spoken out loud. "Are you alright...?" 

He assented slowly and rubbed his eyes with one hand. After that he went on speaking, with more speed than before, as if he was on a hurry to finish. 

One day when it rained they first made love. As everything in their relationship, it was something that happened when it had to, not forcedly at all, little by little. They had taken shelter in a store when the first drops started to fall. They started kissing and stroking one another until their wish was impossible to take any longer and they ended on some blankets that they found there, covered with dust from head to toe but with identical happy smiles. That day, when Gohan went back home, he felt like he was in heaven, floating among the various clouds. He was not even thinking of that Monster any longer. Only her, her and her smile, her and her sweet kisses, her and her smooth hands occupied his mind. She was giving him life. When she was not there, he was dead. He didn't give a damn about anything else than the moment when seeing her again, just that. 

Trunks, frightened, saw that big tears were travelling down his master's face, but not daring to say anything; he just rested his hand over his shoulder, trying to comfort him. His master looked at him without really seeing him, and went on speaking. 

They did it again several more times, four, five, six, until he had lost count. By then he could not help but tell her every moment that he loved her, he couldn't live without covering her with kisses. And he started insisting that he wanted her to go and live in the bunker. He was worried, terribly worried, because of the fact that she had to live on the surface, totally unprotected from the surprise attacks that the Monster was so fond of. In fact, he was, when he was not seeing her, sick with worry, during the times he spent in the bunker, he lived with an ear stuck to the radio, for being constantly informed on the Monster's attacks. 

Trunks knitted his brows for a moment. He could, confusedly, remember a time when, indeed, his master did not let the device, even reaching the point of shouting at him if he ever thought of speaking during a news broad cast. 

But she was not totally convinced. That was, of course that she wanted to live with Gohan, and all, but... there was the problem that her father implicated. He had been one of the most important people in the world, he told Trunks, and he nodded, swallowing saliva. It was terrible to see Son Gohan in such a state. It was making him feel completely vulnerable. If him, his master, didn't know how to react in that situation, how would he, who was still a child? 

He would rather not think about that. He shyly clasped his hand around his master's arm and he went on speaking. 

Yes, he had once been one of the most important men in the world and he was terribly proud. He would never accept anyone else helping him; he would rather do everything by himself. No, he wouldn't want to accompany his daughter to her man's bunker. And she couldn't leave him out. 

Of course when it came to choose between Gohan or her father, the balance unmistakably inclined towards the first. More so when their relationship took one step further. And then they were not a couple. 

Perhaps that was what shocked them more of their life together, for none of them had thought of having a baby, not at the moment, being the Earth in its current situation. They had used condoms every time; but they supposed that some of them could have been in a bad state. After all, they got them from an abandoned pharmacy. Who knew how long they had been there, on the shelves. They used to take the ones that had not overpast their 'best before' date, or, if they all had, the ones that had recently overpast; in the end, the date was only illustrative. However, although all the precautions they took, they failed some point, and there was no use wondering where. The fact was that they would have a baby. 

And they only had nine months to get ready for it. 

Gohan, more enthusiastic each time with the idea of being a father, would not stop asking the girl to move to the bunker. Then, if it was possible, he was even more worried about her than before, for, added to the fact of living totally unprotected from the Monster, in a normal and common house, half ruined, were, besides, the sudden sickness and, above all, that energy that showed itself more explosively every day inside the girl's belly, and that could act perfectly as a magnet for the Monster. 

Trunks could feel a heavier weight on his chest as his master spoke. Gohan had stopped crying, but he had red eyes and his face was wet. He felt that the moment was growing near. He did not want to listen. He did not want to hear. 

But he didn't find the strength to interrupt him and his master went on speaking. 

Gohan was trying not to think about it, but he couldn't help it, it was eating him alive inside, he would die if he were not beside her to protect her from any attack. And he couldn't help but repeating, tirelessly, every minute, and every way, that she had to move to live with them. 

And she, little by little, let him convince her. After all, she was dying to live with the man she loved. More so, with the girl expecting a baby. It was not only her security that was at risk any longer. Obviously, she was afraid of living on the surface, without any protection, but it hadn't looked that grave. Now, however, with the baby, things were different. She could not leave her child to live without security warranties. Gohan's bunker, under the ground, with energy-attacks-resistant walls and able to hide the chi seemed to her the most appropriate place for their child to be raised. Moreover, it was already the time to move to live with Son Gohan. For them and for their future children. She did not want their child to have his parents living apart... And she would be able to see him the whole day, all the time! They would go to bed together and they would wake up with the other one on their side, hugging each other and happy. They wouldn't have to be separated ever more, not at all like they were then, when every goodbye meant torture... she could not imagine more happiness. Gohan and she together, with a child of their own totally secure under ground...! 

Finally, she agreed. Her father would have to understand; one day, the girl told Gohan that she would explain everything to her father and that, as soon as she could, they would move together to the bunker. 

Frightened, feeling his heart very small, the smallest, Trunks noticed that his master was crying again. He saw him raise a hand and rub his eyes, but he got nothing. He turned again, not looking at Trunks anymore, and he hid his face between his knees. When he spoke, Trunks hardly recognised his voice. In fact, there was nothing he recognised about that man. He hardly seemed his master, the proud man that never allowed himself to be defeated by anything he knew of. 

"Can you remember the attack some years ago? The one that destroyed half the West City?" 

Trunks said that he did, in a whisper. He could remember, he had been very afraid. Mother had hugged him until she nearly choked him, hidden in the bunker, while they could hear the explosions and earthquakes coming from the surface. Theoretically, their bunker should resist the attacks but, as it had never been proved, they couldn't be totally sure. 

And above all, he could remember that when that had all happened, Gohan had gone outside the bunker and had not come back until much, much later. He could remember that his mother and he had been terribly worried. That they had not known if he would ever come back. 

For some dreadful hours, they thought that the Monster had killed him. After all, he was not strong enough to challenge it. Trunks could remember himself, six or seven, crying and begging his mother to let him go find his master, getting out of her embrace nearly hysterically. But she didn't want to hear a word about going outside. She even slapped him in order to make him see sense, and him, stunned, had to bow before the evidence, stopping struggling. Even if he went out, there was nothing he could do to help his master. It would kill him too. 

Finally, he could remember himself, slowly and sobbing, falling asleep in her mother's arms. When he woke up, he was in his bed, as if nothing had ever happened, as if it was a normal day. He even thought, relieved, that it had all been a horrible nightmare. But when he went out of his bedroom, he found out the hurtful reality. Gohan had come back, indeed, but he had come back terribly wounded. He lay on his bed, unconscious, while mother was trying to do as much as possible for him, covering his bruises with iodine and wrapping the ones she considered the most important. 

Of course he could remember. That memory would never be erased from his mind although centuries passed. It made him realise that they were not as secure as it may seem. And the worst: it made him realise that, someday, Gohan could die. From there on, that idea had been fixed in his brain, almost imperceptible, as a noise in the back that never abandoned him. It was always there, always, making him remember in a murmur that made him shiver. 

Gohan sighed deeply, as if asphyxiating, and a shudder went through him. 

Trunks did not want to listen. He did not want him to tell him. He nearly wished he could put his hands on his ears, run away, flee from that all. 

But Gohan did not stop. He heard he swallow saliva and getting prepared for letting it go. 

"She died on that attack", he finally murmured. 

Trunks looked down, hardly holding the tears back. 

They were not in time.   
  
  
  


He immediately realised that he was at Cc, in mother's lab. It had basically not changed much, although it was much tidier and there were pretty machines that he did not know.

Suddenly, the energies violently shook him, surprising him like in that first trip, for, once again; he'd been for days without notice of any. This time he had not felt them instantly at the moment of arriving, for when he repaired the machine, there in the past, after, in his first landing, he rolled down a mountain and finally stopped in a river, he recovered it with the same material that the walls in the bunker were made of, that Gohan provided him with. He, in the beginning, did not think it was very necessary, but his late master made him realise that he could be risking himself if he appeared there all of a sudden, without any protection. That he had no idea of the conditions the world could be in and that every prevision that they could take would be too little. And he had already risked himself too much appearing in the past world like he had, all at once. What would have happened, he asked him, if the Monster had been curious about the unmistakably high energy that had surfaced from the nothingness like that, without warning? In his opinion, he had been _too_ lucky once to be that lucky any other time.

He made him note that, a bit, it was all the same, for one moment or the other he would have to go out of the ship and that that would also be like a sudden appearance. But Son Gohan said that, if they covered it, he would at least have time to get ready. And, being that he had to repair the ship and put supplies in it once again, it was not difficult to add that remodelling. So he helped him to sheathe the time machine, and Videl did too, though when her belly went on growing she had to be content with looking and giving some ideas.

But now he was outside. And there was no barrier between the energies in the world and him.

An incredulous smile started to be drawn, little by little, on his lips, and the relief started wining the battle against worry.

He had made a travel to the past with a time machine that his mother had dedicated ten years of her life to. She had died because of that machine. And he had taken her work, many years later. He had been afraid and he had felt himself dying, but, once in the past, he had done his work as it was necessary to.

And even then he could not believe it possible that everything had gone well.

But... but it was not there.

_It was not there_.

He had to bow before evidence. The Monster's nefarious energy, that had always accompanied him, threatening him, obliging him to close himself in a bunker, was making him lose his family, almost his life as well...

It had disappeared.

Without believing it in all yet, he rested one hand, the one that was not grasping the cord of the bag, over the edge of the door of the ship, and closed his eyes. He searched for the energies in the world, once and again; his breath grew faster as his smile became wider. It was not there, it was not there. Not even that latent version that he could feel when _he_ retired to rest, nothing, absolutely nothing.

And, without a doubt, the responsible of that disappearance, and also of the presence of a lot of unknown chis, the biggest amount that he had ever felt, was that energy that was walking through the Cc, not very afar from him.

Gohan and Videl's energies in one single person.

That baby's, the one that was swelling in his mother's womb while he and the father of the infant were getting the ship ready, there in the past.

The saviour of humankind's energy.

He opened his eyes once again and he swallowed. He felt sick; his mind was reeling because he had never known so many lives and energy levels before. He could not believe that that many people lived on Earth. All of them were moving freely, you could breathe calmness, tranquillity. Everything was going fine. There was no Monster. There was no reason to hide, act prudentially.

He jumped down to the ground and he looked around.

And, all of once, he felt lost. Now that he had accomplished his mission and that he was home again, what would he do?

New questions were coming to him. Who would he be there? Would there already be one Trunks there? He could not know it then for, even if another version of himself was on that world, he would be capable of feeling nothing but a total absence of energy. And if there was a Trunks there, what would he do?

Well, and if there was none?

He had to mark a plan for his own behaviour.

Most important point: say nothing about the travel.

They had talked about it with Son Gohan and they had arrived to the conclusion that there was no point in doing so. That the most probable was that he would be taken as a mad man. What would people think if suddenly someone arrived saying: _hey, you know, you live in peace because I've travelled_ _back in a time machine and I've saved a girl, whose baby eliminated the Monster that would have ended, sooner or later, the existence of all humanity?_ In the best of cases they would have had roared with laughter and, in the worst, they have closed him in a mental hospital. For, for them, that had happened a long time ago. It had been that way, and that was all. The other option _had not happened_, it was not questionable, then!

Gohan had given him a pretty understandable example. He said, imagine that you had always lived in a world where the Second World War never took place. What would you think, then, of someone who would come and affirm that Nazis and his leader, Adolph Hitler, started a terrible war that started in Europe and ended by mixing all the great potencies in the world? And that thanks to him they had no help but surrendering? That as in his world the WWII was still dominating everything, the extermination was still taking place, that there were even nuclear bombs being dropped, he had considered it so horrible that he had built a time machine and had travelled back to kill the dictator before the beginning and make, this way, that all that never happened? He would be telling you that he had changed everything!!

He had been shy, since the subject was very near him, but Gohan had been cutting. Evidently, you wouldn't believe him, he said, serious. And he had to concede that he wouldn't, indeed. That he would consider him a mad man. He would not see any sense into it. For, in his world, Hitler had been nothing but a president of the ultra-right wing that was not there for enough time to make anything before being mysteriously killed. Could he understand it? The _Second World War_ _would have never taken place._ Who would have believed that it was because of a man, that pretends to have constructed a time machine? Therefore, there was nothing he could say.

However, if he said nothing, what excuse could his behaviour, that would necessarily be strange, have? What would he say to his mother, Gohan, Videl, everyone? Doubtlessly, he would expect something from him that he would not be able to give them. And, even worse, what would he do with all the people he had never met? His father, Son Gohan's child...?

He sighed deeply.

Anyway, one thing was straight. He could not stay in that laboratory forever, and he couldn't allow anyone who came and see the machine either. So he hid it in a capsule and he walked to the exit. With the handle of the door in his hand, he doubted for some moments, but he ended shaking his head, he ran to the opening device and he stepped outside.

Brightness surprised him. The laboratory was in semi-darkness since it had the lights off, but outside, all the fluorescent lamps were on. He had never seen that much light in the corridors in the Cc. He could not see much, but the little that he reached with his sight made him be admired. The walls were carefully painted in creme, and they did not have the humidity spots he had seen in the Cc in his world... the floor, carpeted, didn't have a hint of scrap or ruins or accumulated dust... there were even pictures on the walls. And, even more surprised, he noticed that he could hear soft music... he had never listened to anything of the sort, but mother had told him what the piped music was, so he supposed that that soft, low music that he could hear was that.

Cc seemed incredible to him, and he had just seen a little of a corridor.

He chose a direction at random and he started walking, trying to pretend normality and with the thick sensation of not getting it at all. His feet were rubbing the carpet on every step. He could feel the energies moving around him, in the offices or laboratories that the closed doors he was passing by hid. And without noticing, the distance that separated him from the saviour of the humanity was growing shorter. Each of them were walking towards the other, shortening the metres, the steps.

Until Trunks saw a girl turning a corner, and they both were face to face, separated by only three or four steps.

He stopped, interrupting his breath as well. He only had the time to think, _My God, Gohan and Videl had a daughter_, before she, after some doubting instants, smiled widely and waved him with a small movement of her hand, murmuring a shy 'hello'.

_My God... Gohan and Videl had a daughter... and she's gorgeous...!_   
  



	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

**Lost and Found - Chapter 4**

**By Tóran**   
  


The days after Gohan's confession were heavy and long. The man was doing exactly the same he had done every day: he woke up early, cooked their meal, washed up, trained, with Trunks and then on his own, and he listened attentively to the radio in the night, before going to bed. At first sight everything was as it had always been, the child thought, looking at him over the milk cup while he was working in the kitchen, or seeing how he leaned towards the radio if the informative waves were lost between interference. 

But it was not the same as always. Trunks only had to roll his eyes towards the third chair in the kitchen, empty and pushed against the table, without any dish in front, to realise it. Mother was not there. 

No, it was not as always, but not only because of that. 

Save the 'good morning', 'good night' and several observations that he could speak while training, his master had enclosed himself in a total deafness. 

At the beginning, Trunks had tried to talk to him, but as time passed by he had had no other chance but give in. The man had not reacted to anything that he had said. The most he had got from him were some dragged monosyllables, as if he hurt to let them escape. And he had arrived to a point where he could think of nothing different to tell him. Almost hysterically he searched in his brain for something to say that was interesting enough to deserve an answer from his master, but nothing but foolish words came to his mouth, and at last he ended by singing some song, in a low tone, very low, so only he could hear it, only to remember that he had a voice. 

And the worst of it all were the afternoons. Morning usually passed by, fast, while waking up, making his bed, dressing, having breakfast and training. But the afternoons were horrible, unending, awful. Gohan washed up and left. And Trunks, seeing him decidedly leaving the bunker, could tell that he would not be back until supper time. 

Then he crawled on the sofa and he painfully missed his mother. 

He had tried to study, for that was what mother would have wanted him to do, but he had found himself unable. Having his mind kilometres away from what was written in the book, he had not felt able to understand even the first paragraph. 

He couldn't understand what was happening. 

When she had disappeared some other times, Gohan had stopped training alone in order to stay with him, keeping him company. Now he didn't even murmur a goodbye before leaving. 

Was it that he believed him old enough to leave him alone? Was that the reason why he acted as it was the most normal thing in the world? 

Scared because of the smallest sound, Trunks didn't feel old at all. 

Was it because what he had told the child? Evidently. But why wasn't he speaking further about that? It was painful for him to remember, of course. But he could always talk about some other things, couldn't he? 

The child could justify him in his head, he is sad, he doesn't feel like talking. 

But the fact of trying to understand his master's behaviour wasn't easeing his loneliness a bit. 

He played tirelessly with the computer or the game console, which he considered his friend, that sometimes got to dull his pain, as an anaesthesia, and while he was diving in whatever game it was, he forgot, at least a bit, the anguish that dominated him. But sometimes he felt so depressed that he didn't even have the strength to turn it on. Then he took the blanket from his bed, carried it to the sofa, he curled under it and left the music in the radio on to soothe him. The commentators, that he had always hated, were now keeping him company. At least they made him recall that there was still someone alive, out there. 

He went over Gohan's history again and again. A girl... a baby... he tried to imagine what his life would have been like if everything had gone right and the girl had come to live in the bunker. Gohan and Videl would have gone to get a big bed, a double bed, in the Cc, and they would have made it somehow fit into Gohan's room. They would have also gone in search for a cradle... and where would have the baby slept when he had grown? For if a cradle could hardly fit into his Master's room with a big bed, it was senseless to think that there could be room for another normal bed there. Trunks thought that the most logical would have been to put the baby to sleep with him, and he imagined his bedroom with two beds, very close one another, or with bunk beds. Then he sighed, resigned. It would have been funny. And he would have had someone to play with. Now he wouldn't have to be alone. 

Why did Gohan never introduce them to the girl? He would have been looking forward to it. And mother would have as well, sure. And perhaps, if he had, she would have moved sooner and she wouldn't have been outside when He attacked the West City. And then there would be a three-year-old boy or girl that would play with him on the game console, with whom he would share his classes, who he would teach to draw and with whom he would make turns to tell each other stories before going to sleep, with the lights off. 

Impatient, Trunks opened his eyes and looked to the clock, forty, fifty times an afternoon, praying for the hands to be much more advanced than the last time he had looked at them. And he made himself remember that there was no use in mourning because of a thing that had not happened and that will never happen either. And that it would be better for him to find a solution for his master to be the same than before. 

And the only solution he could think of was that Mother came back immediately. 

He could not stop wishing that Gohan comforted him and told him that Mother would soon be back, but he never talked, nor about this or anything else , so he had to cheer himself up alone, and he was not succeeding that much. During those unending afternoons, he could not stop tormenting himself repeating that perhaps mother would never come back. And the most optimistic side of his brain, if there was any still left, followed Gohan's example and kept still, leaving the pessimistic one to be the owner of all. 

He normally ended by falling asleep, after having cried a little while. When Gohan woke him up with the noises he made opening the door to the bunker, he sat on the sofa and heard him descending the stairs, while the relief because of having been able to spend one more afternoon invaded his body and he turned around, with a smile on his face, to see his master appear through the door. 

One day, when it had been a bit more than a week since Gohan had revealed the secret of his life to Trunks, the man finished washing up and, after passing a wet clothe over the table, he sat down again on his chair, opposite his pupil. The boy who, looking down, was already willing to slowly walk to the sofa to get ready to spend another hateful afternoon, glanced at him, knitting his brows. He didn't dare say anything in fear of not getting a response, although being used to it by then, but the questions came to his mouth, in the edge of being spoken. Why was he not leaving? It was what he always did, when he finished cleaning the kitchen, at midday... why had he sat again? Was that that he wanted anything? Would he speak again, finally? And would it be to give the boy good news? To tell him that everything would be, again, like before? Or to tell him that there was no turning back anymore...? 

Another dreadful idea crossed his mind, and, scared, he tried to force himself not to think of it, but in spite of his efforts, he didn't go along with it. Perhaps... perhaps he was about to tell him that he was leaving...! 

He shook his head, filled with horror, closing his eyes. It was not possible that he was about to say that! 

"Are you alright?", he heard his master ask, and he opened his eyes at once. 

He had spoken. Gohan had spoken, and not for advising him in fighting. 

Too bewildered to answer, he only assented with his head. 

"Trunks...", he called out, but the boy didn't move. "Trunks, look at me, please..." 

The boy raised his head little by little. Inside, he was repeating over and over, now he will tell me, now is when he tells me, now he will say that he's leaving and that he will never come back. 

When their eyes met, Gohan smiled sadly. 

"Are you afraid of me, Trunks...?", he asked, sighing. 

The boy shook his head no, hesitantly. How could he say to him that what he was afraid of were the words that he could speak, now that he spoke again? 

"I don't want...", he started, but his master cut him in to say the last thing he expected to hear. 

"Forgive me" 

He raised his head, with his eyes open wide. The man still had the same sad smile on his lips. 

"What...?" he asked, in a low tone, to make sure that he had understood it and that he was not hearing only what he wanted to hear. 

"That you forgive me. I've been a fool. I'm very sorry" as the child said nothing, Gohan went on speaking, with an immense sadness in his voice. "I haven't been fair... it's not your fault... and I've treated you as if it was." 

Trunks shrugged, as a huge relief started to dominate him. Gohan did not seem to have the least intention to leave. What was more: it seemed as if he wanted everything to be as it was before. 

Of course he forgave him! How could he doubt it? 

"It's nothing...", he said, smiling for the first time in more than a week. 

"You don't know how sorry I am... you've had a bad time, haven't you?" 

The boy nodded, shyly. 

"Why didn't you want to talk? What was the matter?" all of a sudden, all the questions he had wanted to ask were being voiced. 

His master sighed. 

"I hate, I hate the Monster with all my soul. I am... I am enraged with the world, Trunks. I am since... well, you know. When I told you, I... – he swallowed hard, brought a hand to his mouth, but quickly got over it. "I had never told anyone about it. It was as if... almost as if... it had happened again." 

The boy looked at him with sorrow. 

"I'm sorry...", he murmured. "I asked you to tell me..." 

"But it was me who brought the subject out, didn't I...? Don't worry... as I've already said, it's not your fault at all...", smiling wider, he put a hand out and messed Trunks's hair. The boy laughed lightly, starting to feel really good. "Then, you forgive me...?" 

"I have already told you so!" 

"I'm sorry about not having talked to you much..." much?, thought Trunks, you must be joking, but he bit his tongue. "I didn't feel like doing anything... I only felt like fighting, like letting my rage free, screaming! That's why I didn't want to talk to you... for I would have taken it out on you..." he shook his head, with a resigned sigh. "But I don't know if the medicine has been worse than the illness...! I'm so sorry, Trunks...! I only felt a bit better when I was powering up!" 

"And now not anymore?" 

"Now as well. I won't stop until I beat him, you know. But I have realised that I couldn't carry on that way... I will hate It until I die, and I swear for whatever it may be that I will go till the end of my strength to defeat him." He paused for a second, as if to gain courage. "I will never be happy anymore, either, I know that. But, you know?, it makes no sense making you pay for it, or your mother. It's absurd. And she wouldn't want it either." 

The thought of his mother made Trunks sadden, and he lowered his head, locking his eyes on his knees while his master went on speaking. 

"Trunks...", he said, all of a sudden, totally changing his voice. "Be very happy, will you...? Promise me that you will be very happy, you who can still be happy..." 

The boy looked at him again, with befuddlement painted in his eyes. 

"I... I promise...", he murmured. 

"And that you will fight till the end for what you love. Do you promise? Do you swear?" 

Trunks nodded with his head, disconcerted, and Gohan offered him a smile. 

"That's the only thing that matters in life... don't ever forget that. If you don't fight, you will lose everything. You understand?" 

He was still smiling, but his voice was painfully sad. The child thought that, smiling that way, he seemed even more depressed and hollow than when he confessed everything to him, crying sitting on the grass, and he nodded again, puzzled by the contradiction. No, he would never forget that. And he understood. 

His master sighed, pleased, ran both of his hands over his face and when he spoke again, he had changed his voice again. 

"Yesterday I was thinking, you know...? And I remembered the face you made everyday when I left, and when I came back, at night... the efforts you were making to draw some conversation out of me... and I saw that you were worried because of me and that you didn't deserve that at all. Trunks..." 

"Yes...?" 

"Are you angry with me?" 

The boy bit his lower lip, thoughtful. Was he angry? Right then, there was only relief inside him. And before? Had he been angry? No... there had been no room, to be so, between disconcert and fear. 

"I don't think so", he finally answered. 

"You only think so?" 

"I'm too happy because of you speaking again.", he said, resting one cheek on his shoulder and plainly smiling. "When it passes, I'll tell you, ok?" 

Gohan laughed and crossed his arms on the table after, expectantly looking at him. 

"Well, while it passes, what do you think we could do this afternoon?" 

"You're not going to... train?" asked the child, his voice filled with hope. 

"You are getting very strong, you tire me out while sparring...!", answered Gohan with a smile. "You know?, I thing that I'll need several afternoons sitting on the sofa playing with your game console to recover..." 

It had been three weeks since the morning when his mother had disappeared when, while Gohan and Trunks were having breakfast, they both heard, over the crispy voice coming from the radio, how the bunker door opened over their heads, and the next moment they were invaded by the boy's mother's energy. Among some other energies, of course, like the dreadful one coming from It, but Trunks didn't even think of that and, brusquely moving back the chair from the table with both hands, mother is here, he jumped to the ground and started running towards the entrance, after shooting Gohan a bright smile. 

But his master raised a hand and murmured a tense 'wait'. The boy, that was about to exit the kitchen, looked at him, astonished, while mother, upstairs, closed the door and eliminated, that way, every outer energy. 

"Hello!! Hey, guys, I'm here!!", they heard her say, while she started descending the stairs. 

Trunks looked at his master, mystified. What was the matter with him? Couldn't he see that it was mother? That she was finally back? 

"What's the matter?", he asked, copying his voice but in a more impatient way. "It's mother, Gohan!!" 

"I know...", he answered, always in murmurs, while the boy was dying to start running out of the kitchen. "I know that you swore... but don't say anything to her, eh?" 

The kid assented, annoyed. Perhaps he thought that the first thing he was going to do was to go and tell his mother? He had given him his word!! 

But afterwards he saw worry in his eyes, and he imagined how bad he would feel again if he had to give reasons about it again to anyone else. For mother would want some explanations. Obviously, she would not be satisfied with what, in an hypothetical case, Trunks could tell her. She would want to know more, she was that way. And Gohan would writhe in pain if it was moved further. 

He could understand his worry. He didn't want to suffer anymore. He didn't have to annoy him about it, it was not that he didn't trust him, simply, what was happening was that his secret was not only his anymore and he was afraid because of this. 

He smiled reassuringly. 

"Don't worry, I won't forget, I won't say anything. I swear!" 

He raised both of his index fingers, crossed them on his lips and kissed them. When Gohan answered his gesture with a thankful nod, he stormed out of the kitchen. 

The moment when he entered the dining-room, mother was entering too, through the other door, the entrance one. 

With a huge smile, he threw himself to her arms and hugged her tight. 

It had been three very long weeks, twenty-one days of anguish, specially the first one, when he had discovered the immense weight of loneliness. Afterwards Gohan had helped him a lot, but that did not change the fact that she had not been there and that they had had nor the smallest idea of when she would be back, not even if she would ever. 

May she never leave again!! He hated it!!! May she always stay with him, he did not want to be alone ever again, ever again!!! 

He realised that his eyes were full with tears and, all of a sudden, a sob passed through him. 

Mother caressed his hair and rocked against his body for some moments, saying nothing at all. Afterwards, softly, she pulled his head, that the boy had buried in her chest, apart, and she looked at him smiling. 

"I have also missed you a lot, Trunks, my son...!!" 

Too relieved to get angry, the boy felt how tears fell down his cheeks. But at least he tried, to get angry. 

"Don't ever do that again, momma!!! Why do you do that?! I don't want you to leave ever again!! I didn't know if you would come back or not!!" 

"But you know that I always come back, little one...", she answered, gently caressing his cheek. 

"No!!! I don't!!!! I only know that you have always come back so far!! But what if now you didn't?! Don't ever go again, ok?!! Don't do it again!!!" 

Mother dried his tears with her hand and pulled his bangs out of his face, her smile never leaving. He could tell that she was tired, she wore her clothes messy and her hair, uncombed, untidily tied in a pony tail. But, despite this, Trunks realised that she was shining with happiness. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks red and her smile was huge. It seemed to him that, although her aspect, he had never seen her that beautiful. And only on a few rare occasions had he seen her that happy. 

When he was about to hide again in her arms, Gohan came from the kitchen. 

"Hello, Gohan", mother saluted. "How have you been?" 

"Fine. We've trained a lot, haven't we, Trunks? And we have also spent a ton of time playing the game console...! Your son has become a monster of video-games, Bulma." 

The boy looked at him and saw him smile, with his hands in his pockets, exactly as always, as if nothing had happened, as if he had never explained nothing to the boy crying, as if he had not been speaking to him for a week and then talking to him afterwards, as if he had not asked the boy to forgive him, as if he had not just made him remember not to ever tell anyone, as if mother had never left. And the biggest relief that had ever washed through him made him shed more tears. 

While he assented, mother caressed his hair and passed two fingers under his chin after, making him look at her in the eyes. 

"It's alright, Trunks." 

"What is alright?", he asked, raising a hand to dry his eyes. 

"You have asked me not to ever leave again. So it's alright. I won't do it again." 

The boy looked at her astonished while she widened her smile. 

"Re... r-r-really?", he stuttered with disbelief. 

"Really" 

"Have you... finished? I-I mean..." 

She nodded, hugging him. 

"Yes. I've finished." 

Trunks was rocked again by his mother's arms. Indeed, all had been sorted out. And the last three weeks of anguish became, automatically, just a bad memory. A bad memory that would never be repeated again. Because she would never leave again.   
  


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_ (If ff.net allowed the font tags, you would be seeing next paragraphs in green... Thanks)_

He got to smile, nervous, as well, and he tightened his grip around his bag, feeling that then was the most difficult part since he got in the ship, there in his world, and started moving through the quantum scum, was beginning. He had no idea of how to behave, nor what to do. 

My God. She had to realise that! 

He could almost see how he was trembling, and his heart, like mad, was beating hard in every spot of his body. He would not live through it. No, he would not. Gohan and mother had hated that he said that kind of things when he was a small kid. "I won't get along, mother, I will never understand these exercises", he said, in classes, and she went up the wall. "I won't ever be able to do that, Gohan, I will never be able to reach super sayjin!", and he told him off for wasting energy in complaining instead of using it to transform. 

He had learnt to never say that. He knew that there was nothing he would get, by complaining. He knew that it was only justification that he used for himself for not feeling that guilty. If he would never be able to, he wouldn't feel as bad if he stopped trying! 

But the fact was that he won't get along then. Everything was too new. Everything was too relative. He couldn't start to talk and expect everything, out of chance,would suit the life he would live in that world. There were too many coincidences. It was not possible that they happened all together. It was so unlikely! 

In the end, he chose to answer a "hello" in the same voice she had used, shyly, and before looking at her again, he turned his eyes to the carpeted ground. She had very big eyes, black and, above all, intense. He couldn't bear her glance, not yet that they didn't know each other. He had never seen such an intense gaze... He reaffirmed his first impression. Indeed, the saviour of humankind was gorgeous. Hair as black as her eyes, falling in soft waves that reflected the light from the corridor. Bright smile, that enlightened all her face. And those eyes... 

She reached his level and affectionately pulled his arm. He rolled his eyes from the ground and looked at her; now her black eyes were smiling, all her face was. 

"Have you just arrived?", she asked, in a murmur. 

He nodded his head. If she didn't ask where he had gone to, everything would be easier! 

"Has anyone seen you?", she murmured again, and he, this time, shook his head no. As long as he knew, he hadn't met anyone else before meeting her. But why was she asking so? He hadn't the time to think about it before she tightened for some moments her grip on his arm and invited him to follow her along the corridor. 

"Come...!", she whispered, waving at him, implicitly asking him to hurry up. 

He followed her at once, and after walking for some minutes through the carpeted corridors, and being lifted by an elevator where he, being a kid, had played, in his destroyed Cc, as if it was still working, they got to a room, and she made him enter before closing the door after herself. 

Trunks studied the bedroom. Something told him that it belonged to someone young (perhaps the printing in the quilt that was covering the bed, or perhaps the presence of the desk, with pen cases of several measures), but anyway, he thought, while she was motioning for him to sit on the bed, it all seemed somewhat strange, as if it was... he didn't know. As if it was artificial. Nothing clinging on the walls. Everything too tidy... It must be her room? He didn't believe so. 

She sat by his side, looked at him for some seconds without saying anything and afterwards, making her smile wider, she introduced herself. 

"Hello... my name is Pan", she said, and her tone was as if she was apologizing for not having told him before, for having dragged him so hastily to the bedroom. 

Trunks, surprised, blinked. The woman was introducing herself. But why was she? It was to be assumed that they knew each other, wasn't it? Or, at least, she had acted as if they did... she had grabbed him by his arm, she had affectionately talked to him, she had smiled; he had thought that they were friends or that, to say the least, they were acquaintances. In the end, she was Gohan's daughter. They must have talked lots of times; they would have had on many occasions. 

But then she was introducing herself. Why? Why? His brain was working vigorously, and he could hear his heart beating hard. And what was he to say then? From what he would say would depend his future there... 

He opened his mouth and, without realising, an insecure voice that fought for him not to reveal his true nature escaped from his lips. 

"Why... W-why do you assume that I didn't know your name?" 

Once he finished the sentence, he felt that it hadn't been a very natural question. He had intended to react as if it had no sense, that she was asking him that. But that was not the way. He would have had to say... something like, he didn't know, hey, what's the matter, are you all right? I do know, that your name is Pan! But, with his sentence, better than trying to hide that he knew nothing about that world, he had totally uncovered himself. 

How had he started that bad? 

So her name was Pan... 

She laughed, lightly, seeming, though, a bit disconcerted, and said something that paralysed him. 

"Because you don't...", she said, shrugging slightly. "Because you are Trunks, who has come from the past, where you went to save my mother, so I could be born and kill the Monster..." 

After some brief instants of silence, the boy sighed, astonished. That meant that there, they knew who he was exactly and what he had been doing. They knew everything!! 

How was it possible that...? 

Of course...! Her parents! He had been with her parents there, in the past, repairing the ship and discussing his travel back to the future. Then he was in the future of that world, since it was where he had parted. In the past they had taken for granted that he would go to an alternative world, because of what Gohan had advised him so fervently, but he was wrong. 

They had forgotten that, most of the time, the most probable option was the one that really happened; if he departed from that world, the most logical was that he appeared in the future of that same world, without Monster, with Pan, but the same world in the end. And, therefore, Gohan and Videl could remember him and knew that he would come. Gohan should have thought about that later. Perhaps he hadn't ever been sure that he, one day, would appear. But they still ignored too many things about time travel as to discard options. So, to take precautions, they had gotten prepared, telling everyone. 

It was as if... they were waiting for him. 

"So you know everything, don't you?", he said, without changing his astonished voice and glance. 

She nodded, smiling, and to the eyes of the man, her beauty grew even bigger. 

As she didn't say anything, the man retook the conversation. 

"You were waiting for me, weren't you?" 

The woman looked at him for some moments, and afterwards, saying nothing else, she drew closer to him in the bed and hugged him tight, putting her arms around his neck and hiding her face on his shoulder. 

He felt his stomach jump, something he had never felt before, that made him smile and blush slightly. It was a... very nice sensation! He let his arms slip around the woman's waist and entwined his fingers on her back, hugging her as well, as he let her scent surround him. She smelled nice, fresh, relaxing. And her skin, which was brushing against his neck and cheek, was smooth, smooth and warm... 

How pretty she was... 

With this thought, his stomach, his chest or whatever it was jumped again inside, making him smile wider. It had been very, very long since he had last felt that good. If he had ever felt that good, that is. 

After an undetermined while, the woman pulled back from his shoulder. 

"I have missed you very much...", she murmured; with a voice that was smiling, and rested her head again. 

During a short moment, Trunks did not think of the meaning of that sentence, he just kept on embracing her, with his mind practically blank, as he was surrounded by her energy, her scent. 

But then he saw it. How could she have missed him? Actually, it was supposed that he had not gone anywhere, had he? That was to say, the 'he' of that time... had been with her since she was born, hadn't he? And how could she have missed him, if she had never met him before? Or she meant the other one? Obviously, she had to mean the other one. If she had missed him that meant that he was not there. But why not? Was he abroad...? He thought of the stupid idea of more time travels, but he discarded it. Why would he have had to travel? 

Or was it that... 

He searched for her eyes, and she looked at him, smiling, blushing a bit. 

"How is it that you have...", he started, but he didn't find it a good way to set it and changed his mind. "I mean... is it that there is not... a Trunks, in this world? 

She knitted her brows, doubting. She bit her lip and looked at him, now her eyes were shining with sadness, and he understood what had happened without needing her to explain it. 

" He died... He was the last victim of the Monster..." 

"And... I mean... you remember him? How old were you when that... happened?" 

"Nine... I was still training to defeat him." 

"Well... I'm sorry..." 

It was strange to express his condolences for his own death! 

"It doesn't matter... but I've missed you...!" 

She hid herself again between his neck and shoulder and he, feeling that she smiled, hugged her tighter. 

His brain was moving frantically, analysing the fact of being dead in that time. So it was that in that world, where he had just been, just a couple of hours before, with Gohan and Videl, repairing the time machine, or, indeed, in the future of that time, he had died in the Monster's hands... One day he had seen himself, from afar, seven years old, running after Gohan. A child, still, enthralled, after his master... He hadn't talked to him, of course, it would have been counter-productive. And now, that child, that was himself, was dead... 

It was as if someone was making his way easier. In this time there was no Trunks, therefore, one of the problems that he could have, and all the paradoxes that supposed the fact that there was the same person twice in a same world were eliminated as well. 

And one of the other problems that he could have, that everyone expected things from him that he couldn't give them, that they noted that he was not normal, that he came from another place, was also eliminated, for they were informed about everything, they knew all what he had done, there was no need to hide, to pretend to be someone he wasn't, nothing at all. 

It was all so easy that it seemed impossible. 

Just when he closed his eyes and sighed, she withdrew a bit and looked at him, smiling, expectantly. It was as if her eyes brought an unspoken question, now, what? 

He shrugged, wishing that she didn't separate more from him, but she let her arms slip and in the end only having one of her hands over his, on the bed. 

He missed her. He was cold! 

But he had to say anything... He had just arrived from the past. By all that was sacred, she was waiting for him to have something to say! 

Finally, he spoke out loud the only rational thing that he had thought about. 

"It's all so easy that is seems impossible..." 

She raised one shoulder, smiling. 

"Mother and father explained everything to me." 

"But I thought I would have to fake, I don't know... To tell the truth, I don't know what I would have done!" 

"It's better like this, isn't it?", she answered, with bright eyes, and he energetically nodded. 

They stared at each other for some seconds without saying anything until he, shy, looked to the ground and asked about her parents. 

"They are well", she answered, rolling her eyes and smiling. "They will want to see you..." 

Something came to Trunks's mind. 

"Listen, before, why did you want to avoid anyone seeing me? Why have we come here so quickly?" 

"I wanted to prevent you... explain everything to you, so that it was not so new..." 

"Thanks, then...", he answered, and she shrugged, diminishing it. The boy looked around. "It's... I mean... it was my room, wasn't it?" 

"Yes... no one wanted to touch it much, so it pretty much stayed as it was." 

After some more seconds in silence, that the man used to scan through the room, he looked at her again. 

"You know?, I don't know why, but I had always imagined Gohan's baby as a boy..." 

She smiled openly, raising her brows, questioningly. 

"Thanks...?", she said, cocking her head. 

"No, no... it was just... a comment!" 

"Should I feel... I don't know, thankful, disturbed, indifferent?" 

"No...! Nothing at all... it was just a, a comment, this, that's all, totally innocent... You had always been, I don't know, 'he, the saviour of humankind'... I don't know why..." 

He felt how, trapped, he was starting to blush, and he lowered his eyes so that she didn't notice. 

"It's curious...", he heard her say, after a while. 

"What is?" 

"How someone's perception can change when you grow up..." 

"What do you mean?", he asked, smiling. 

"When I was a kid, I thought you were very old...", she changed her voice, making it more childish, dyed with admiration. "Woooow... how grown up he is... how many things he knows how to do..." 

The man smiled. He had also gone through that phase with Gohan; he felt for him a limitless admiration, he knew how to do everything, he was capable of repairing everything and if he was not killing the Monster already it was only because he hadn't had the time yet, but he would, sooner or later, it was evident! 

He tried to imagine a young Pan and it wasn't very difficult, with ponytails in her hair, short and with softer, rounded features, like how young children had them. How beautiful she must have been! And now it had to be very weird for her to see him... now that he was as old as her, she realised that he was not as perfect as she had imagined when she was nine. 

"I'm crushing childish myths, now...", he joked, gripping her hand softly. 

Her eyes made that something inside him jump again, spreading butterflies through all his body. 

"Oh, but some others appear as well...", she said with a naughty smile, shining eyes and blushing cheeks. "You are very good-looking..." 

Feeling his face burning, he hid his head between his shoulders and looked to the ground. 

"No one had ever said that to me... only mother, but...!", he got to murmur. 

"Ah! Then, you'll have to get used to it..." 

He looked at her, shy. 

"Why?" 

"Oh, for you were very popular with women..." She brought her hands to both sides of her face and faked a scream, hysterical. "Aaaah!!! Mr. Torankusu!!!, they cried!" 

"R-re... really?" 

She nodded vigorously. 

"They were after you like flies...! They all wanted you as their boyfriend!" 

Trunks swallowed, disturbed. No one had ever told him that he was particularly good-looking. Only mother, but her opinion didn't count, besides, she had died when he was still a kid and he hadn't had the time to develop. Then... he was good-looking? 

"And you mean that now I will be popular as well...? I mean..." 

The woman repeated the energetic gesture she had made before. 

"Sure..." She made a pause, staring at him. "You know?, to think that, before, when I was a child, I didn't understand them..." 

Seeing her eyes shining with sincerity and her blushing cheeks, he felt as if all the blood in his veins had gone to his face, and he had to look down, shyly smiling. 

It wasn't until a few moments later that he felt able to look at her again. 

"You are very beautiful too...", he said, sincerely. 

"Thanks...!", she said, slightly cocking her head and making her hair move in soft waves. After laughing softly, she stared at him, without losing her smile. "Listen, I'm normally not like this, eh? I mean, don't think that I always... have my hormones so uncontrolled... I... I am a tidy, equilibrated, controlled woman... really!" 

He had to laugh, and she did as well. 

"... I am also an equilibrated, controlled man..." 

"Not very tidy, are you?", she asked, noticing that he had omitted the adjective she had used. 

"No, not much..." 

Pan knitted her brows, faking sadness. 

"So you are not uncontrolled...", she said, and he laughed again, raising a shoulder, making the pleading expression in her face disappear, that, after a few moments observing him, became a wider smile. "Listen, are you doing anything, tonight?" 

He laughed again. 

"No, not that I know of...!" 

"Then, would you like to...", she started, looking at him with what was becoming a naughty look, although something made her change her mind and she went back to the shy expression she had before. "Oh!, don't pay attention to me, I'm not like this, really!", she exclaimed, and they both laughed. 

"If you want to go out for supper... I'm free!" 

"No...!", she answered, pulling some strands of hair out of her face, nervously. "We will have to have supper with my parents... but I liked that seductive look!" 

It took him a few seconds to understand that she meant his look. 

"I've looked seductively...", he smiled, sceptic. "I didn't know..." 

"Yup! And I like it...", she laughed, before asking again. "And after having supper?" 

"I'm all yours!", he said, shrugging and trying to copy the expression she had considered seductive. 

"Yes, uh...? I'll take your word, eh?" 

"All yours as well!" 

After laughing lightly, they both kept silent for a while, both lost in their thoughts, until the girl broke the silence. 

"I guess that you will want to see my parents...", she sighed. 

"Yes, now...", he vaguely answered. He didn't feel like leaving that room, meeting more people, he wanted to stay like he was, with her alone. 

But he had to ask some things. She wouldn't find it normal, he couldn't be silent, and that was all. A second time, he had to remember that he had just come back from two time travels. For God's sake, hadn't he anything to ask? 

"How... how is mother...?", he finally asked. 

The expression of the girl progressively changed until becoming sad, though she kept her smile. Trunks didn't need to hear anything. 

"She's dead, isn't she?" 

She nodded. 

After keeping his silence for some moments, remembering the day when, as a small kid, he knew of her death, he looked at her. 

"Before or after me?" 

"Before" 

"That's good, then..." 

"Why?" 

"Because it must be horrible to see your son die...", he said, keeping the sad expression. "Hey, it doesn't matter, eh? I got over it a very long time ago...!" 

She smiled wider and grasped his hand. 

"Who is alive, then?" 

"My parents, you, me... and most of the humankind...!" 

"And my father...? Your grandparents...?" 

"They were already dead when you went to the past, remember?" 

"Of course...", he said, thoughtful. "I should have gone sooner... but then you would not have been conceived yet and it would have been useless... what a mess!", he concluded, shaking his head, and an idea went through his mind. "Have you noticed? To save you, I died... I mean that, because of the distortion I caused..." 

She looked at him, raising her brows. 

"Everything is so paradoxical when you time-travel..." 

"I'm happy of having saved you!", he concluded, smiling openly and blushing slightly. "And... thanks for killing It..." 

"A pleasure!", she answered, impetuously. 

They stared at each other, quiet, Trunks was on the verge of saying something else but, for some reason, he forgot what, and it seemed that the same happened to her, for she remained looking at him, without saying anything else, while her smile became wider and her eyes, huge, were so bright that the man could see his own reflection for some instants before she looked away and bit her lips, shamefully. 

"Hey... I better calm down... eh?", she murmured, and he, laughing, tried to hide his trepidation. 

"Then, what will we do after supper...?", he asked, without thinking, for, in those moments, he wouldn't have felt able to. 

"Anything you want...", she said, looking at him with happiness. 


End file.
